For the Year
by Dragons4ever
Summary: Soul loves her, all of her, for all of time. Waldgeist AU.


**A/N: Written for Eis again as her Soul Eater Secret Valentine's gift from me set in her Waldgeist AU. This AU is so interesting to write, I love it.**

 **Enjoy!**

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The Waldgeist is at her liveliest during spring time, and it is beautiful to behold.

As the snows melt, the little shoots and saplings begin to grow with her whispers to encourage them. Her eyes seem to glow every time she watches a leaf uncurl, a bud blossom, a shoot peek through the ground. Her smile is almost as bright as the sun, and when it reflects off the cold morning dew, she dazzles him.

When he has a free moment he watches her work, silent and attentive. Maka is happy for the company and she teaches him all about the plants, how to sing even the most stubborn flower into blooming. He tries to memorise everything, not just her teachings, but also the trill of her voice and the light of her eyes. The shimmer of her hair in the spring sun haunts him as much as the brush of her hand against his does.

It is during the spring that the Waldgeist sometimes disappears for a while, spending days on end with older trees deep in the forest to help them accept spring and grow green again for at least one more year.

Sometimes Maka helps with birthing animals too, but Soul know she mostly leaves them to themselves. She tells him the animals—particularly the deer—are too proud to ask for her help. He touches his scar once she turns away and wonders if that was a hint for him to let her in.

He decides not to trouble her with his petty nightmares. He can handle himself, _has_ handled himself well enough before he truly got to know the spirit of the forest.

During summer, she is more carefree, at her happiest. Fields of flowers bloom for her songs (ones he could never hope to reproduce on his little pipe, no matter how many times she assures him of his talent), and fruits ripen at her touch. She invites him to eat with her in the shade of a large oak tree most days, and to his shame, he fixates on the way fruit juices dribble down her chin.

They swim together in pools at the bottoms of singing waterfalls. He blushes for her nakedness but she in unabashed. She is nature incarnate, and what is more natural than nakedness? The waters cools him off until her intense gaze heats his blood again; he ducks under the water to hide his blush, closing his eyes so he does not peek. She laughs at him when he surfaces and he convinces himself that the pink he spies on her cheeks is from the sun.

The alternative makes him tremble far more than it should.

Summer rain is warm, and he dances with the Waldgeist between the tall, swaying trees, doing his best not to trip on the roots when her graceful movements distract him. He still falls eventually, but it is because she pulls him to her and their feet tangle. His breath is knocked from him when she lands on top of him, but he does not mind, her soft smile and dark eyes more than make up for it.

He swallows thickly when she continues to stare at him and his heart thunders as she brushes his soaked hair off his forehead.

Without his permission, his mouth tells her, "You are the most beautiful creature in this forest."

She laughs. Her lips are soft. She breathes shakily. Her skin is sweet. She breathes him in. He wonders if it is safe to love the Waldgeist like he does, for nature is not safe. He does not care. Her kisses are too good to stop.

In autumn, the Waldgeist slows, murmuring songs of sleep as the days shorten and the nights grow colder. Leaves fall from the trees so that the ground crackles under her feet when she dances.

He brings her new gloves and shoes when the harvest finishes. They fit perfectly, as he knew they would and the kiss she gives him in thanks makes his knees feel weak. That night they roast nuts over a fire and he holds her close, keeping them both warm with the cloak he received upon becoming a true hunter.

The Waldgeist understands why he and his people must hunt, but she does not like it. She stays far away from the hunting parties when they go out and she does not speak of his absence when chases take him for days on end. Before they became…whatever they are now, she would avoid him for a day after he and the other hunters returned with a kill. Now she just sighs and looks a little sad.

She still accepts the furs he gives her though. Even if she does not like where they came from, the cold is coming early this year and she appreciates the warmth.

One day she tells him snow is coming within the next few days, as they sit on a log watching the morning sun melt the frost.

"Stay with me this winter," he wants to say, but he knows what her response will be. The Waldgeist will not leave her forest, not until the Higher One takes her into the eternal sleep. So he brings her more furs, and the blanket his brother's wife weaved.

After the snow falls, the whole forest is blanketed in a layer of white. As he stands in the middle of one of her fields, he aches at how silent it is. No birds call, no creatures rustle in the bushes. There is only the crunch of snow under his feet and the rustle of his clothes.

She is falling into her winter sleep when he gets to the cave she calls her own, nestled in the various furs he has given her. She is awake enough to blink silently at him as he sets about making a fire for the two of them, for while she may be too tired to say anything, he knows she will listen as he speaks.

And speak he does.

During winter, the Waldgeist does not stir. While the forest sleeps, so does she, for what can she do while all that she governs is deep in the cold snow? He visits her often, sits with her, cradles her, whispers his secrets to her.

He tells her of the music he hears in her voice, in the whistle of the trees, in the whisper of the flowers. He presses kisses to her head and face and hands, holds her close to his body. When she sleeps, he misses her terribly, his heart hurts to be so close but so far away.

Occasionally snow keeps him away from her for days, sometimes keeps him _with_ her for days. Because of this, he often brings a couple of days' worth of food, just so he does not starve.

She wakes up only once, during the Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Her eyes glow bright with power, and she sleepily murmurs things to him in a tongue he does not understand. He strokes her hair back as she talks and takes immense comfort in how she pushes her face into his hand. She falls back asleep once the day is done and does not wake up until the snows begin to leave.

When spring returns and the year begins anew, she awakens in his arms and meets his smile with her own bright one.


End file.
